The story of System Shock is that you’re an unnamed hacker in the year 2072 that has been tasked with taking down an AI known as Shodan. Shodan has taken over a space station and has plans to take over and enslave mankind and it’s up to you as the named hacker to stop it.
System Shock is an action adventure game that has you playing in a first person perspective. You are tasked with traversing a space station in an attempt to take down an all powerful AI that has taken control of your environment. You are given a map that has a pretty good identification system for access panels, enemies, doors, etc that is much more robust than I was expecting.
As you make your way through the environment, you can pick up a lot of random objects that can be recycled for credits. Those credits can be used to purchase items that can help you along the way. In addition to random items, you can pick up items that will give you stamina, regenerate your health, and can even find weapons that you can use to take out the environmental foes. The enemies that you encounter could be one of the numerous robots that have been turned hostile by the AI that’s taken over, or the once human creatures that are either mutated horrors or menacing cyborgs.
There are key-cards and puzzles that you will encounter on your trek that will prevent progression until found or solved respectively. In addition to these key-card access doors and puzzles, there is the issue of the environment itself. What I mean by that is that because it’s a space station, a lot of the rooms have the same metallic look to them and nearly all of them have lights on panels and on the walls. This can make it hard to get to where you need to go to progress through the game. What you think is a door to open because it has a light on it is just a door with a light on it and serves no more of a purpose than to be part of the environment.
Graphically speaking, System Shock is a breathtaking game. It is graphically stunning on the Xbox Series X. There is a ton of detail in every room. You have remnants of the crew of the space station everywhere, displays that give information, there is a lot going on throughout the game and it all looks stunning. The game does a great job with the environment having dark shadows, lights that will sometimes light up an entire room or blink in the shadows, making it seem really ominous. Great use of ventilation ducts with steam coming from them with the occasional creature darting into them and out of site. Performance wise, the game seems to perform at a solid 60FPS which given the platform, I am not at all surprised. In fact, I am more surprised that it wasn’t running at a higher FPS.
System Shock has nailed environmental sounds. The space station creaks and groans, with your footsteps and those of the horrors that lurk in the shadows have a satisfying metallic sound against the metal floors. Doors have futuristic beeping and booping noises as they swoosh open. Each enemy has their own distinct sounds they make that are sometimes mistaken for environmental ones which can be dangerous if you’re not on your guard. The music in the game hits hard and sounds as futuristic as everything else the game.
I went into this game without having ever played the original game from 1994 of which this is a remake. So as someone that has never played the original game, I can’t comment on how true to the it this game is. What I can comment on is how amazing this game is in every way. It really tries hard and succeeds at making you feel like you’re stuck in a futuristic world in the fight of your life and all mankind.
Easily one of the most complex and beautiful action adventure games that I have ever played. System Shock is the Deus Ex and Skyrim of this generation!
Fan of the original game or not, you have to pick up this game if you’re an action adventure game fan!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
